Pew Research: The Rising Cost of Not Going to College

This week, Pew Research Center released their 2013 compiled data on those who did not attend college and those who graduated college in order to compare earnings, poverty, unemployment, job satisfaction and other measures. Unsurprisingly, college graduates fared far better on such metrics.

Perhaps more surprisingly, though, is that a college education is worth more than in previous generations over a high school education. Much of this is likely to do with depressed wages over the past 30 years in multiple sectors, especially in those only requiring a high school education.

There’s a lot of interesting data in the following graphs. Perhaps our favorite is the hopeful fifth graph which shows that, despite increased tuition costs, students still believe college is worth the investment.